


Christmas Longing

by poppunkwolf



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Christmas, Drama, F/F, Family, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 04:56:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9056233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppunkwolf/pseuds/poppunkwolf
Summary: The shoes are as delicate as time. They are a muted pink, with ultra-soft satin running across their flexible length and reinforced toes. She wills herself not to get tears on such a precious item, to not stain this pure thing like she has tainted the best of everything in her life. She places them in the gift box. Annalise, Eve, and Christmas through the years.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks thesturridgedance and shaloved30 for beta reading.

The shoes are as delicate as time. They are a muted pink, with ultra-soft satin running across their flexible length and reinforced toes. She wills herself not to get tears on such a precious item, to not stain this pure thing like she has tainted the best of everything in her life. She places them in the gift box.

 

 

 

Annalise begins to giggle as soon as she undoes a piece of the wrapping on the box, and sees the word Naughty printed in red across the side. She eyes Eve, who picks her glass of cinnamon spiced sangria up from its spot near the tree and sips it with cheeky, play-innocent poise.

She quickly unwraps the rest of the gift. It is a game called Naughty or Naught, and she removes the plastic over it and opens it to see a stack of cards. The directions are simple: Take turns reading the cards, and see where it takes you. She pulls a card from the middle of the deck and reads aloud, “Tell your partner of your favorite sexual encounter you’ve shared.”

“I can’t wait to hear our greatest hits.” Eve leans in expectantly. Her fingertips graze her own earlobe as the other hand lightly holds the wine glass.

“Remember last year when Professor Carson told us to show up at one pm but he meant three, so we got to the courtroom two hours early?”

Eve nods, the smile spreading across her face. “We had so much time, and nobody was in there…”

Annalise’s fingers find Eve’s thigh and run a figure eight pattern over her skin. “Remember how hard it was for you to stay quiet?”

Eve nods breathlessly as Annalise’s fingers slide higher up to the meeting of her thighs.

“And how you held me tight with both of your legs wrapped around me, and you came so hard on my fingers…”

Eve pulls Annalise closer, wordlessly nodding as Annalise touches her through her clothing.

“I discovered something important that day. That we can get away with pretty much anything. I almost still can’t believe the DA who walked in on us thought I was consoling your tears.”

Eve breaks into laughter, and so does Annalise. Eve captures her mouth, reaches to slide fingers in her hair, arches into the touch of Annalise’s fingers, but Annalise breaks the kiss with a playful smirk. “You have to pull a card too.”

Eve moans in resignation. “I hate you,” she teases. She composes herself, and pulls a card with dramatic indignation. She reads, “Do a naughty dare, chosen by your partner.”

Annalise smiles and crawls closer to the gifts beneath the tree. She selects two presents and places them before Eve. “I dare you to use these gifts.”

Eve shakes them each, grinning even though she hears nothing. They are both small and weightless, but she chooses the flatter of the two. “Hmmm,” she teases, upon opening it. “I see what you’re trying to do. This is one of those gifts that’s really for you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Annalise insists. “But hurry and put it on so we can get to the second gift.”

Eve undoes the second box and pulls out the mistletoe held together in a red bow. “This mistletoe is officially more clothed than I’m going to be in a minute.” She dangles it in the air and captures Annalise’s lips, kissing her deeply and then breaking the contact. “Close your eyes.”

Annalise closes her eyes, and hears the gentle movement of clothing falling to the floor. She hears Eve giggle, and then announce that she can look. Eve is laying near the tree on her side in the lingerie, her head resting gently in her palm. The slinky red lace top drapes across her torso, and neither it nor the lacy panties do more than lip service to covering all of the parts of Eve’s body that Annalise wants to ravish.

“I put the mistletoe on the tree,” Eve says, “Merry Christmas, now come unwrap me.”

Annalise takes her time making her gift come apart.

 

 

 

“Can I hold your hand?”

Eve halts on the snow-covered sidewalk. “Huh? Of course.”

“I just don’t want to do or say the wrong thing, or do anything that might get you in trouble.”

“In trouble? Annalise, my family knows I’m bringing my girlfriend.” Eve takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. “They’re excited to meet you.”

Annalise says nothing, contemplating this, trying to visualize what that would look like.

“Everyone’s English is okay but just say ‘goedemorgen’ and ‘dank je’ and at dinnertime ‘heerlijk’ like we practiced, and they’ll be thrilled and they’ll love you.”

Eve continues to hold Annalise’s hand as they approach the walkway to her parents’ house, and Annalise feels her chest constrict and her adrenaline rush at the realization that Eve is completely serious about holding hands, together, in front of her family. Yes she’s become comfortable at school, but this is…

But then the door opens before they can even approach it, and out pours Eve’s mother and some other people, and they greet Eve with hugs and then throw their arms around Annalise like she is their long lost family. When she receives a customary three kisses on her cheeks from Eve’s mother, and a welcoming squeeze on the hand that is not still clutching Eve, she begins to understand what it could mean for a family to be completely unfazed by their daughter bringing a woman home.

What she also doesn’t expect, when they all awaken at daybreak, is for there to be _so many_ presents – for her.

“Eve told us you love travel, like she does,” Eve’s mother says with eyes full of kindness when Annalise unwraps her gift, a guide for best undiscovered places to visit in Paris, her and Eve’s dream destination.

“Dank je,” Annalise says, smiling back at the woman who has enveloped her in the family’s welcome. She flips through the book and places it beside her with the rest of her gifts when they hand her another.

 

 

 

 

The ballet theater sits dignified in Harvard square, its granite and fieldstone offset by brilliant stained glass windows, and its gothic rooftops emerging high above the trees that hover all around it as if protecting a secret. They hold mittened hands as they stand in line to enter the building. Eve leans in to plant successive kisses across Annalise’s nose. “To warm you up,” she says, and Annalise grins and wraps her arm around Eve’s coat-clad waist. They go inside just in time to miss the idyllic snowflakes that begin to gently float down over the building.

It’s Eve’s third time seeing the Nutcracker – she went with her family when she was younger – and it’s Annalise’s first. Annalise catches her breath when the Sugar Plum Fairy spins through the air. When Cavalier catches her, she feels like she too is floating. The dancer is grace, a canvas and a storyteller. The dance is energetic, the music is classic, and the story is charming. She and Eve continue to catch each other’s sparkling eyes at every compelling moment, and when the cast takes their bows they join the rest of the audience in applause on their feet.

They take their time re-layering, and by the time they are buttoned up they begin to pick up on the murmur of the crowd, the people who are not disbursing and whose cadence grows more and more chaotic.

 _No one is allowed to leave,_ her ears pick up.

_What’s going on?_

_I don’t know._

They look around, and then a man in a buttoned suit takes center stage.

“Good evening everyone,” he says. “It has snowed harder than the weather predicted and it seems we’re now in a flash blizzard. We are all snowed in, which means you are unable to leave until the blizzard is over and we can clear entry ways. Please remain calm and seated when possible. We will alert you to when the blizzard has passed.”

There is some wailing and anger from a few people who cannot handle a disaster, or maybe have families or important matters to get to, but this is an easygoing, mostly college-aged crowd, and they roll with the punches, taking seats and chattering amongst themselves.

Eve suggests they go to concessions to get eggnog, and she purchases a medium drink for each of them. They settle on a mantle near the lobby as people wander past.

“My favorite part is always the children, like the Polichinelles,” Eve says. “They’re just so adorable."

“They _were_ cute,” Annalise agrees.

“Plus it makes me so nostalgic for what might have been. I wanted to do ballet when I was little but even as a child I was too tall for my age.”

“Maybe you’ll have a daughter who loves ballet, and you can put her in it.”

Eve grins. “Let’s not be those moms who try to live vicariously through their daughter. But I do agree we should instill a love of ballet and theater in her.”

It’s as if she doesn’t even know what she said, the way she sips her drink and then places another kiss upon Annalise’s nose. Annalise doesn’t let her pull away, touching her face and capturing her lips and realizing something about her future warm enough to melt all the snow around them.

 

 

 

There are an infinite number of universes. In one of them she is not spending the days leading up to Christmas with a bottle of vodka, languishing in her bed sheets. In one of them Wes is rushing to the door of his apartment to greet Laurel with a warm kiss. In one of them Sam – both of them – are out looking for the tallest tree to bring home. In one of them, she never looked the love of her life in the eye and told her she should go to San Francisco.

 

_Eve kneels to plant kiss after kiss upon her protruding belly. “He’s going to be brilliant like you,” Eve says._

 

Maybe in this world, it’s not one child, but a bunch of them. Maybe they are innocent like nothing around her has ever been, but they cannot avoid mischief.

 

_Annalise bites into one of the cookies by the tree, and her eyes shoot wide open in shock. “What the hell is this?”_

_Eve descends into laughter. “I’m so sorry, but your face is priceless. The kids insisted on pranking Santa. They decided to do each cookie as a flavor inspired by Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.”_

_“What? What is that?”_

_“It’s funny. I told them they had to sleep if they wanted Santa to come, but I’d peek and tell them his reactions.”_

_“Tell them Santa says they’re all naughty and never getting presents again,” Annalise declares._

_“Relax,” Eve says, getting up to procure a plate of cookies from behind the tree. “They told me to make sure you also see the good cookies.”_

_“Snickerdoodle, my favorite,” Annalise says. She sends Eve a skeptical glance, then bites into the cookie. She groans in approval. “Tell them they’re reinstated and they’re all Santa’s favorites.”_

_“I know not to mess with your sweet tooth.”_

 

 

The little girl stands poised in a pink ballet tutu, her arms in a perfect fifth position, her feet en pointe in pink ribboned shoes. She is serious about this talent.

“Her name is Grace,” Eve had told her over the phone a few months ago, as Annalise gazed tearfully at the texted photo. “We loved her from the moment they placed her with us. We’re finalizing her adoption.”

And how could she contend with such true, deep, all-encompassing joy for the woman that she is now realizing she will never, ever have back? Eve and Vanessa – Grace’s mothers. The kind of family she wished she had known decades ago she could fight to have. The kind of family a little girl had waited four years for. Someone’s precious baby had been born breathing and it hadn’t been enough. But Eve and Vanessa would be enough, and Annalise’s tears cannot harbor such a selfish feeling as sadness.

 

She seals the box of ballet shoes and makes sure the San Francisco address is right. It will get there by Christmas day if she drops it off as soon as possible. There is so much to yearn for, but there is someone who Eve will keep from ever feeling alone. She hopes the shoes take the child far from a world where she will ever know longing.


End file.
